CDC Study: 110 million VD infections in America right now

A new set of data released by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shed light on the breadth of venereal disease infections occurring all throughout the United States. According to the CDC, there were 19.7 million new STD infections in the US in 2008, bringing the total to over 110 million. The number is expected to be even higher, since the study is using data that is four years old.

This means that there are more STD infections than jobs created in the US. A full 50 percent of the infections occurred among those in the 15 – 24 year old age bracket. So, there were about 10 million new STD infections for this age group at the same time as the were just 1.5 million bachelor’s degrees awarded during the same school year.

The CDC estimates that the cost of these infections is about $16 billion per year.

“CDC’s new estimates show that there are about 20 million new infections in the United States each year, costing the American healthcare system nearly $16 billion in direct medical costs alone,” said a CDC fact sheet.

The study, “Sexually Transmitted Infections Among U.S. Women and Men: Prevalence and Incidence Estimates, 2008” was published in the March edition of the journal of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association.

“In 2008, there were an estimated 110 million prevalent STIs among women and men in the United States,” said the study. “Of these, more than 20 percent of infections (22.1 million) were among women and men aged 15 to 24 years. Approximately 19.7 million incident infections occurred in the United States in 2008; nearly 50 percent (9.8 million) were acquired by young women and men aged 15 to 24 years.”